Mote in the Eye of Eternity: Part 11
This fic takes place a hundred years after the events of
Bubblegum Crisis, which have been altered slightly. It contains
mature themes, language and (hopefully) sentence structure;
don't fear the semicolon.
"The softest thing in the world
Rides roughshod over the strongest
No thing enters no space"
-43, Tao Te Ching
Jake Gittes settled into his seat at the cargo airlock,
glancing down at the schedule hovering over his desk. The
hologram's base gave a flash, reminding him of the shipment's
arrival.
"Like I forgot," he muttered to himself, ignoring the two
R-class boomers behind him. He stood up, the boomers following
him as the shipping manifold and authorization data replaced the
schedule on the hologram.
Idly cursing his lack of a neural computer module, Gittes
acknowledged the reports by batting a hand through the hologram.
The whole security check was automated and completed by Genom
HQ's central computer; HQCC (as it was referred to in the
literature) was second only to the real AI's in complexity and
could enforce the station's policies a great deal more
efficiently than poor Jake Gittes could.
The five humans on the other side of the airlock were getting a
thorough scan from the omni sensors mounted outside the OTV's
berth. Then the OTV's computer was checked out, providing HQCC
with the complete list of all events that had occurred onboard
for the last three years with the verification numbers built
into the machine back when Genom manufactured it. After HQCC
confirmed both the status of the order what the OTV was carrying
and the disposition of the crew the airlock slid open.
The two armed Boomers and Jake's own sidearm were mere
formalities; at any moment a hundred boomers of various combat
classes could descent on the room and deal with any reasonable
threat. Jake didn't bat an eye when a sharply dressed Genom man
left the airlock trailed by four scantily clad women of various
ages.
Another pimp and his hoes, Jake thought, running a finger under
his nose as he did whenever he saw an attractive woman. And the
four following the clean-cut pimp out of the airlock certainly
were attractive. The first was a tallish woman with dark blue
eyes and temple length cyan hair, the hair's chaotic disposition
adding to her sexiness.
Behind her was an Asian woman of probably twenty five, hair
back in a single ponytail reaching the middle of her back. She
was dressed in a leather outfit, clinging tightly to her
athletic body. A younger girl, barely 18 (older than many that
come up here, Jake thought as he checked her out) followed out,
a look of distaste on her face. Her shoulder length hair was
dyed blond with pink and green streaks passing through, making
her look like some punk band's painted slut.
"Clearance code?" Gittes asked as the OTV's passengers filled
the small room.
"Clearance code?" the sharply dressed man asked the air. He
glanced once around the room, sidling up against the first woman
provocatively. He mused over the question for a moment, the
silence straining the room. After a moment his expression
relaxed and the man grinned predatorily. "Don't got no stinking
code," he replied, driving forward with his forearm.
The next several seconds passed all too quickly for Jake
Gittes, as the women quickly destroyed the boomers. The chaotic
battle took no more than a half second, its aftermath leaving
Gittes on the floor with a broken jaw, courtesy of the 'pimp.'
The boomers were reduced to broken assemblies of tortured metal
and the four women had been replaced with variously colored
quicksilver figures moving around the room almost too fast to
see.
The pimp stood in front of Gittes, his fingers stretched in a
lethal array of polymer blades as the combat cyberware deployed.
Insane, Gittes thought. They couldn't really be trying to attack
Genom HQ, could they?
"There's going to be a hundred boomers knocking on this door in
a second," Gittes said as the pimp hauled him to his feet.
The pimps reply was a confident grin that told Gittes the
security systems had been disabled. "We've got a little surprise
for your buddies," the pimp said, his tone evil.
As he spoke the man pulled a small cylinder from the impeccably
pressed Genom uniform, twisting the ends and placing the small
metal cylinder next to the door to the rest of the facility. His
four quicksilver friends spread across the room, looking as if
they were waiting for the laundry to finish its cycle.
"Sorry to do this to you, but� the pimp said as he gripped
Gittes's chin. He drew his arm back as if to punch, but the
strike landed too quickly and all Gittes knew was darkness.
"Don't get to comfortable with that pimp line," Ingrid warned
Smith through the tactical channel as he leaned next to her.
Chiriko couldn't help but smile at the insolent grin Smith shot
back. The first stage had gone perfectly according to plan, the
nanophage released and the room secured.
"I don't see why you're so uptight. We've got thirty minutes to
wait according to the timetable. We might as well relax and
enjoy ourselves." He dug through his pockets. "Andrea, are all
the room's alarms disabled?"
"Yup," Andrea replied distractedly. Damn girl never takes
anything seriously, Chiriko reflected, her good humor replaced
by irritation. Patricia was propping up the security guard,
wiping the blood off his chin from Smith's punch.
Smith was rolling a cigarette, obviously enjoying his role as
pimp. Chiriko walked over to Smith, grin on her own face. "Hey
big daddy," she said, "got one for a working girl?"
Ingrid snorted, smiling finally to release the stress. Chiriko
rolled herself a cigarette, letting Smith light it for her and
returned to her perch on top of the guard's desk. In the top
left corner of her vision the mission clock ticked away.
The room was mostly silent as the minutes piled up. None of the
Sabers had much to say, having expended whatever conversational
juice they might have had in the simulation runs onboard the
Tonobu. After ten minutes Andrea perked up. The smell of smoke
grew cloying as Smith smoked another.
"I'm getting some really strange readings from the Central
Computer's datastream. Telemetry is dropping out all over the
place."
"Then the 'phage is working," Patricia asked, worry in her
voice.
"You heard Isis," Ingrid began. "She modified the 'phage to
only effect combat boomers. It should cripple the entire defense
system of this station long enough to get into Kei and Yuri labs
and get the Aether data."
"Do you know what that 'phage does? And who made it the first
time?"
"It makes boomers go berserk," Andrea interrupted. "And the
meat Mason made it, so what?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Chiriko noticed Smith start
slightly when Mason's name was mentioned. Filing away the data
she stood up. "Lets get going," she said, stretching her legs
out.
"We're five minutes ahead of schedule," Ingrid protested,
signaling defeat by rising to her feet. Is she eager to go?
Chiriko wondered.
"I'm sure the 'phage is working," Andrea added, pulling herself
off the counter she had secluded herself on.
Patricia stood up, stumbling slightly as she stretched out her
shoulders. "Clumsy me," Chiriko heard her mutter, almost too
soft to be heard. They gathered at the door, Smith at the rear.
According to the briefing he'd wait at the OTV, holding any
possible resistance away with a box of toys supplied by Isis.
"See you girls in twenty," he said as he retreated into the
OTV. The hiss of the outer airlock closing seemed sharper to
Chiriko than she remembered. Adrenaline, she thought as she
stood point at the door.
"Andrea," Ingrid sent across the tactical channel. She nodded
her head towards the door.
"Opening," Andrea replied and a moment later the door slid open
silently. The first thing Chiriko noticed was the lack of
visible light; her augmented vision could still pick out the
details of the room, but the images had that odd feel to them
that Chiriko had learned to associate with her expanded sight.
"HQCC reported power interruptions about two minutes ago. I
couldn't get into the causes without some serious hacking,"
Andrea explained. The route to the labs was displayed across
Chiriko's field of vision, a blinking cursor marking her
position.
They rounded a corner, reaching one of the lobbies of this
particular section of Genom HQ. Chiriko stopped abruptly as she
started distinguishing the shapes slumped around the large room.
Here a technician was splattered against the wall, his tools
scattered across the room. There a worker boomer was crushed
into the floor, various specialized appendages deployed towards
the ceiling.
"What the fuck happened here?" Chiriko heard herself say
calmly.
"Mason, look at this," Patricia said numbly from the other side
of the lobby. She was standing above a pair of bodies, her green
body slumped slightly as she looked down at the two boomers. One
was split down the middle, cut by what had to be a Morning Star,
while the other was riddled with holes. The perforated boomer
was delicately holding the other's hand.
"Fuck," Ingrid said as she scanned the rest of the room.
"Thirteen dead humans."
"This wasn't supposed to happen. We weren't supposed to do
this," Patricia said bitterly.
"Fuck em," Andrea said suddenly, moving towards Kei and Yuri
labs. "We've got a job to do so let's get to it."
The rest of the trip was silent except for the occasional
creak of damaged machinery. The closer to the labs they got the
more damage they noticed to their surroundings. Three hundred
meters away there were dents and scorch marks in the walls and
floor. A two hundred meters and the walls were warped by
high-energy weapons, twisted Dali patterns making the walk
difficult. Under a hundred meters from the labs and they were
almost wading through the boomer parts, some of which were
disturbingly organic.
The lights were on in Kei and Yuri labs.
Andrea dove headfirst through the data walls, punching through
the ICE with the most powerful cracker she had. The system,
normally defended by human and boomer Sysops, was dead quiet
except for the automatic defenses. They were no match for the
combination of Andrea's skill and the power her firm suit
computer could produce.
"Sweet Mason," she swore as the diagnostic results scrolled
through her perception. "Its active," she said as she started
downloading the data. "And unstable as all fuck."
The data stream itself was beginning to perturb, Aether's
powerful computer twisting the remaining landscape around
itself. What had begun as an analogous digital layout of Genom
HQ was rapidly being turned into a sinkhole with Aether at its
center.
Andrea was slowly being pulled closer as well, Aether turning
from a blocky, retro computer terminal to a glowing shape whose
outline was fantastically difficult to conceive. It's sucking in
all the data, Andrea though as she punched out. Even the
protocols and firmware are being effected.
The normal light of the blank white room that housed the Aether
prototype was a harsh contrast to the darkening data stream,
though the strange humming noise that filled the room had been
in the background of the lab's system. The deep thrum of the
noise was amazingly disconcerting, a fact exacerbated by the
room's silence before her Interface session.
"When did that start?" Andrea asked shakily as she regained her
real space bearings.
"A couple of seconds after you Interfaced," Patricia responded,
worry evident in her tone. "What's going on?"
"The boomers or somebody must've set Aether off. Its ripping
the data stream apart."
"That explains the trouble we're having getting a line to
Smith," Ingrid replied, looking nervously around the room. "Lets
get the hell out of here, shall we?"
The four formed up, Chiriko in front again, and made their way
back to the cargo section. Their return was marked by vague
sensory returns, ghostly images of beserking boomer just outside
of Andrea's range. An occasional roar would resonate along the
hallways, punctuated by the sounds of battle.
Andrea shivered as she remembered the feeling of the Aether
prototype clutching at her essence. She couldn't stop thinking
about it, the sinking feeling as Aether pulled at her. "Fuck,"
she muttered, shaking her head to clear her mind. She worked the
Interface for a moment, copying the data she had managed to
retrieve from the data stream. One of the copies she hid and
encrypted, storing it on a solidified bit of nanonics from her
suit.
The tiny platter of hardened silicon made it easier to control
the shaking feeling. Smith greeted them at the door of the cargo
room, a massive rifle held easily in his hands. Pieces of
boomers littered the hallway, and a cigarette hung from the
grinning man's mouth.
"Bout time," he muttered. "You're behind schedule."
"Interface troubles," Andrea muttered, pushing past him and
Chiriko and moving into the OTV with as much speed as possible.
On the ground the Genom guard struggled in the polymer web Smith
had locked him in.
The rest of the Sabers, and Smith, followed Andrea into the
OTV.
Jake Gittes cursed at the women through the polymer webbing he
was wrapped in. Terror wracked him, a claw grabbing his heart
and squeezing since the pimp had started killing boomers. He
struggled uselessly against his bonds, unable to free himself or
attract the attention of the women, who piled into the airlock.
A moment later the faint noise of the clamps releasing filtered
in through the bulkheads, marking their departure.
Fuck, Gittes thought angrily. What the hell am I going to do
now? Another sound slowly made itself heard as a few moments
passed. A low, deep throb caressed his ear, disturbingly cloying
sound that made his body feel uncomfortable.
The hum grew to a murmur, an almost voice that rose in volume
with each passing moment. What is this? Gittes asked the empty
room, frightened and aroused at the same time.
Suddenly the murmur exploded into a chorus, though Gittes
couldn't make out words in the sounds, or even if the sound was
produced by a voice. Bits and pieces of his mind became unstuck,
whirring around his head as if they were honeybees struggling
back towards the hive.
More pieces broke free as the room, and Gittes speculated the
entire habitat, began to shake. He slid towards the far wall
slowly, as if something was dragging him to the center of the
station. Barely audible beneath the raging chorus were the
sounds of tortured metal and blaring klaxons which, had Gittes
been fully conscious, he would've known marked decompression and
integrity alarms.
Blinding white replaced thought in Gittes's mind and finally
static filled his perceptions. His thoughts slowed down, finally
reduced to a frozen wave of quantum events pulled towards a
singularity and halted by spatial permutations.
Then the balance of energy and matter registered the
discrepancies in the region and the tiny singularity ruptured,
scattering whatever was left of poor Jake Gittes to the cosmic
breeze.
"Holy Shit," Patricia said softly as the blinding white light
lanced out from the shredded habitat. The twenty million-ton
central habitation zone broke apart like leaves in a storm. A
ring blazed outwards, the matter of the habitat broken down into
its component atoms and energized by the power of the blast,
slicing through the smaller satellites and the deceptively small
cords that linked the station to the orbital elevators.
"Good god," Ingrid said as the shock wave rushed towards them,
throwing the ship around. Alarms sounded all through the cabin
and their firm suits rushed over any exposed skin as the
atmosphere vacated the interior. Some of the screens burst from
the pressure drop, leaving the cockpit mostly empty.
Clutching his throat, Smith began bleeding from his nose as the
pressure began boiling his blood. "Fuck," Ingrid practically
yelled on the tactical channel, ripping free herself from her
restraints with ease. She slid up against the stunned man and
wrapped her arms around him. Patricia could see the firm suit
spread, extending through Smith's clothes and coating his body.
The shreds of his Genom uniform fell towards the back of the
still accelerating OTV.
"I'll be damned," Chiriko muttered as the two of them held each
other. "I think you two need a room."
"Shut up Chiriko," came the terse reply.
"Yeah, I don't mind you watching," Smith shot along the link,
his masculine voice odd through the connection that had been the
four girls and Isis's alone.
"The cables!" Patricia yelled as her attention returned to the
scene behind the ship. Support vessels were approaching the
region of space that housed Genom HQ a few moments before. Some
were sending themselves after the space elevator's cables, which
were slowly (relative to those in orbit) falling towards the
surface. "They're going to hit the surface," she said.
"Each of those cables is almost a mile across," Andrea said
bleakly, sounding shocked. Patricia noticed something some of
the gleam in her eyes had died since she returned from Kei and
Yuri Labs. "And almost eighty miles long, without the
counterweight."
The cabin was silent for the rest of the trip towards the
rendezvous point with the Tonobu. No one bothered to
depressurize the cabin.
End part 11
Author's Notes:
A little longer, a little darker and a little closer to the
end. This series will be finished (probably two parts from now)
and I will be able to move on to other stuff. Damn it. Probably
romantic comedies. Seriously. Happy stuff, I swear. Anyway, feel
free to email me with your commentary, or read some of my other
stuff at www.brandeis.edu/~jmele, an extraordinarily useless
website.
Jerico
Fnord.